Episode 91: Transforming a Baking Hobby Into a Subscription-Based Business with Shelley Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO at BāKIT Box
On this week’s episode, we chat with Shelley Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of BāKIT Box, a female, minority-owned specialty baking kit service. The brand concept is to make baking fun, easy and accessible.
We discuss various topics, including Shelley’s career change from real estate and finance to CEO, how she transformed her hobby into a business, the extra benefits BāKIT Box subscribers receive, the company’s target demographic and so much more.
Keep reading to learn more about the episode.
Shelley Gupta
Shelley was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She is Indian by heritage and, before running BāKIT Box, spent most of her career in real estate and finance.
She moved to Chicago to return to school and engage in strategy and entrepreneurship work. After completing an MBA at Chicago Booth, she fell in love with both the city and the school and decided to stay in Chicago where she has lived ever since.
Shelley met her future co-founder, Medina Jacobson, at Chicago Booth. Medina was both a classmate and a good friend. Several years after studying together and then following separate career paths, they then came together to start BāKIT Box.
BāKIT Box
BāKIT Box was founded in 2020 during the pandemic. With more time at home and more time to bake, Shelley realized there hadn’t been much innovation in the baking space for a while and there was a gap in the market. She wanted to find a way to create a relevant product that was representative of the population and would give people more options when it came to baking.
From a hobby to a business
While there were options for cake mixes or pre-mixed products, Shelley and Medina noticed that there weren’t a lot of easy solutions on the market for baking from scratch.
When it comes to baking from scratch, a lot of the work is done before you even enter the kitchen. You need to research online, find the right recipe and buy all the ingredients. This can all take a lot of time and money, especially when you have to purchase full-size retail products.
Baking typically requires many ingredients but in small quantities.
Whilst baking during the pandemic, Shelley took note of the flow of tasks done before you get to the kitchen to start the fun part. She thought about developing a kit that had the recipes and exact quantities of ingredients ready for people to bake with.
To understand the market, Shelley researched companies that provide similar at-home solutions, including meal kits, kids' activity boxes and other subscription box services.
Shelley noticed that many subscription box services weren’t providing all-inclusive, culturally diverse kits. Given her background and ethnicity, it was important for Shelley to give access to different cultures.
While everyone loves baking brownies and chocolate cakes, there’s so much more to baking, given access to the right resources.
Thanks to The Hatchery, a Chicago-based incubator, Shelley and Medina could start BāKIT Box. This was their first step to see if BāKIT Box had what it takes to be a viable business.
The pair went through six months of training with The Hatchery; obtaining licenses, receiving food sanitation training and understanding what it takes to work in a shared kitchen. They worked with pastry chefs and culinary experts to determine what would make baking their recipes easy and user-friendly.
BāKIT Box officially launched in February 2021. The brand didn’t start as a subscription box, it took almost a year to get to that point.
BāKIT Box’s target demographic
BāKIT Box’s target market is aged 25 to 50. It includes parents and millennials seeking convenient, at-home experiences.
The majority of its members are parents with children aged 5 to 15. This is because the baking kits are a fun, family activity involving no screen time. Not to mention there are always delicious baked goods at the end of the activity.
Marketing strategies
BāKIT Box does a lot of organic marketing through email blasts, using its own network and social media.
The brand has also partnered with major corporations such as HelloFresh. It does this by placing coupons in their boxes.
BāKIT Box has also teamed up with big brands like Microsoft and McKinsey for gifting. These companies purchase holiday gifting for client appreciation events, which include goodies from BāKIT Box.
When it comes to social media marketing, BāKIT Box has success with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest. The team also works with paid media and strategy for acquisition.
Technology
BāKIT Box started by using Squarespace as a platform for the company and PayPal for payment, but as the company grew, things became more complicated, especially when they incorporated the subscription model. They then transitioned to WordPress and WooCommerce and began to use Stripe as their payment processor. The brand continues to expand and as it does so they are constantly looking for the next tools to help them on the journey to success.
They want subscribers to be able to choose each month what they wish to have in their next box, so this functionality needs to be available on the site.
Functionality as a whole is important when it comes to the website. It’s essential that customers can easily manage their accounts, see the available options and make selections. It’s also crucial for Shelley that the team can communicate well with the developers and are on the same page when it comes to making decisions.
The BāKIT Box team currently works with a great partner that has a combination of solid development and UX skills. For Shelley, speaking with people in tech, founders and other consumer brands is extremely helpful. She finds out what tools they’re using and this helps inform her decisions.
If you want to reach out to Shelley and her team and learn more about the brand, head to the BāKIT Box website here.
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